It doesn't seem like it was nearly 60 years ago that Richard Woodley of Canton drove in his first race at the old Canton Speedway. Actually, it has been only 58 years since he — as a 17-year-old Canton resident — got behind the wheel of a race car.

"My brother, Raymond, and I knew the guy that owned the Canton Speedway back in the early 1950s. I'd help him prepare the track for the weekly races,'' Woodley said last spring as he was attending the Old-Timers Reunion at the North Side Improvement League. "My brother was supposed to drive the car in this race, but when we got to the speedway he told me that I should get behind the wheel and drive it. I pulled out onto the track and a driver was coming down the speedway and ran into the door of the car. That was the only dent we ever got on the car during the time we raced it.''

Woodley's racing career spans parts of six decades. He recalls racing the 6-cylinder cars in the early days. Woodley, who retired from the service and later as a member of the New York State University Police at SUNY Canton, said racing back then was an exciting time in the north country.

"Racing was just taking hold in the country and tracks were springing up in a lot of places,'' he recalled. "Besides the Canton Speedway, there was racing in Alexandria Bay and later at the Watertown Fairgrounds. We also did a lot of racing at Fort Covington. We've also raced at a number of speedways in Canada as well as recently in Oswego and at the Adirondack International Speedway."

His last race was in 2006.

Woodley believes that the problem with today's racing for most of the drivers is that one isn't going to make much money at it.

"They've got the prices so high from building a race car to the engines, but the purses aren't that high,'' Woodley said. "Sponsors are the big thing, but the majority of the drivers in the area today, including myself, aren't going to get the sponsors that cover the money that is needed to race now.''

He believes racing locally is in a valley, but noted that the sport has had many highs and lows since he first began racing in the 1950s.

"Gasoline prices has got to be hurting the race fans as well as the drivers,'' Woodley said. "Take the pit crews, the guys you rely on to help you at the races. A lot of tracks they tell me now are forcing the pit crews to pay a fee which they didn't years ago. In those days, the drivers and car owners paid the pit fees. I hear that track officials say it is a type of insurance protection in case a crewman gets hurt during a race. Maybe there is something to that, but it hurts you in getting a pit crew together.''

Woodley said he didn't keep a running total on the number of features he won over the years. During one three-year stretch, Woodley won a track title at Canton and two other seasons he won titles at Fort Covington.

While he has experienced a lot of strange things that have occurred on area racetracks over the years, there is one race that still stands out as No. 1 in his book.

"It was at Fort Covington in 1957,'' Woodley said. "It was the last race of the season. There was only one class of cars and there were plenty of heats. Usually there were 20 cars in a feature. On this night, everyone made the feature.

"The guys with the lowest points started up front in the feature, while the ones like myself with the most points started in the back. Sixty-two cars started the race.

"A good friend and fellow driver from Madrid came up to me in the pits. He was a good driver and in the top 10 in points. He asked me, 'What are we going to do with all those guys ahead of us?'

"Because I was leading in the points I was the last of the 62 cars to line up. It was taking so long to get everyone in the right order that I got out of my car and walked over to the driver that stopped me earlier in the pits. He was a little upset because of the number of cars in the feature.

"I told him that as soon as they wave the green flag I was going to head for the fence. Everyone always drives to the inside, and I'd drive towards the fence. I was only kidding at the time, but as I got to thinking about it I decided to try it.

"When the race started everyone started pinching down the inside and by the time I came into turn two I was in seventh position. The other cars weren't smashing into each other, but they weren't giving each other and room to race, either. I passed 55 cars between turn one and turn two. I won that race.

"My buddy came down to see me after the race and he said that when he saw me go past him he followed me to the fence line. He finished seventh in the race."

Back when he first started racing, Woodley said, it wasn't unusal to be racing five nights a week. While Woodley is 75, he still looks like he could still compete in races against the younger drivers of today.

John O'Donnell covers local auto racing for the Times. You can contact him at jodonnell@wdt.net.